


Black Hole

by Ossicle



Category: One Piece
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 07:34:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19786213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ossicle/pseuds/Ossicle
Summary: When Law retrieves Kidd from that black hole in the bottom of Kaido’s keep, there are entire pieces of him missing. Nothing physical, but maybe that would have been easier.





	Black Hole

**Author's Note:**

> Damaged Kidd and Surly Caretaker Law. Just mining the hell out of the amnesia trope for angst. Set about a year after Kidd’s capture by kaido. 
> 
> I actually wrote this like two years ago, and been holding onto it for neurotic reasons, as I sometimes do. It's a little outstripped by canon now, but here I am, letting it go. Enjoy~~

\---

_ The memory—the last one he had left—was almost all gone now. One slow-motion moment remained: Green all around, and bubbles rising absurdly from nowhere. A lean figure with messy black hair was walking away. Kidd watched him go, helpless, as the sun sped overhead for the hundredth, the thousandth time, casting its brief window of illumination over them before the consuming dark. _

\---

It was so quiet in the medbay. There was only the distant hum of the engine, and Kidd’s barely detectable breathing. Law found himself holding his own breath without realizing, listening for something.

There hadn't been much by way of wounds to patch once they’d finally pulled Kidd out of that black hole at the bottom of Kaido’s keep, but there hadn’t been much of the man left, either. It had taken months to plan the extraction, months more for the opportunity to present itself. It'd been a fucking year by that point, and Law had been truly afraid that they wouldn’t find anything at all. 

The body they retrieved was whole and alive, but unfamiliar and unmoving. Kidd’s powerful frame had wasted away down to bones and nothing. His red hair was darkened with grime and his eyes moved restlessly under paper thin lids. Dreaming? He remained unresponsive as they carried him away, transferred him to the medbay aboard the sub, swarmed over him with tests and IVs. They watched his every breath for the first twenty-four hours, but there was no change for better or worse. Law sent them all back to their posts and took over watch of their strange guest himself.

In the following days, the Heart Pirates captain checked in again and again on the rival captain in the medbay. Law knew he was fussing pointlessly, but he needed something to fix. Everything else he could have patched up was long since scarred over—just raw sores from the seastone shackles left now. Lawcontented himself with cleaning the grime from Kidd’s body, at least, sponging over the old scars on his face and arm stump, and the new ones on his back and legs. Then he washed the hair with a slow thoroughness that Kidd would never have sat still for while awake, with all his restless energy. He’d have gotten bored and pulled Law into the water halfway through… heh…

Once washed, Law marvelled at how long the red strands had grown—shoulder-length. Without the gunk Kidd usually used to spike it up, it was soft and fine, threading easily through Law’s fingers. It was as brilliant red as ever.

The rest wasn't as easily restored as that.

Law cleaned and trimmed the fingernails on the right hand with particular care. Kidd had liked to paint them red or black or some deliberately awful shade to match his lips, and then let both smear and flake away. The whole effect had been garish bordering on camp, but it'd worked on him—a preening excess flaunted as carelessly as his scar tissue. The nails were growing in jaggedly now, split around knots of scar tissue deep in the nail beds. Law skimmed over these gnarls hesitantly. He wove his own long fingers between the raw-knuckled ones and imagined them grasping back, all crushing strength and heat like he remembered. 

But these hands were clammy and cold. There wasn’t even a twitch of an answering squeeze. The wrongness of it struck him suddenly and made his throat tight.

_ “...Shit.” _

Law looked around to make sure none of the crew was around to see him getting so fucking choked up. There was no one, of course. He’d told them all in very specific terms to fuck off and let him tend to the man himself. He swallowed a couple times and leaned down over the still form.

Kidd’s lips were as cold as his hands. Like kissing a… a machine, or a corpse. Law clenched his teeth and pulled away.

“Eustass-ya,” he started aloud, like there was anything he could say…

Kidd’s eyes slid open—solid red globes.

Law jolted. “Eustass??”

Kidd gave no further sign that he'd heard Law. His eyes were startling, a swollen mess of burst veins, the whites as dark red as the irises. Pinprick pupils wavered back and forth, focused on some point far far above him.

“Eustass-ya. Hey.  _ Eustass Kidd.  _ You're on my ship, you're safe, we came and got you.”

Nothing. 

Law turned the pale face and unblinking eyes toward him, apprehension twisting his gut. There was nothing there—just blank, hell-pit eyes staring right through him. He fumbled for his pen-light, not taking his gaze off Kidd’s face. He shone the little light in one eye, then the other, and they contracted slightly, but that was it.

A quiet voice interjected from the door, “Captain?”

“...yes, Penguin-ya.”

“Jus’ checking in. He conscious yet?”

Law turned the unresisting head back away from him and closed the eyelids. “I don't know. Peng, I don't know if...” 

He trailed off and left that thought unspoken. Penguin nodded back toward the bridge where a call was waiting, and Law let the limp fingers fall from his. He fled the room and tried not to imagine those eyes following him.

\---

Penguin went and found Law in steerage later, conferring with Jean Bart as the giant man checked through a crate of strange weapons. 

Law was counting out a scheme on his tattooed fingers as he spoke. He had a “D” and an “E” going already:

“Shachi’s team with these on the far side of the island,” ...A… “your team supporting them,” ...T… “and then I'll take the fleet into secondary formation” ...H… “once Strawhat and the…”

Penguin leaned close and muttered a few words that made the letters curl back in on themselves. A moment later there was a blue flash, and Penguin’s terse warning about possible trauma and delicate mental states was being delivered to an IV drip stand instead of Law.

\---

Some skeletal creature with Kidd's face was hunched in the medbay bed, staring through Law. He was so unblinkingly still that Law wondered if this was another unconscious reflex.

Law called from the door, “Eustass-ya. You awake?”

A pause. Then Kidd's growling voice came out of the creature. “Seems like. What you standing there for, you fucking want a piece?”

“Hah...”

Law let out the breath he'd been holding but remained on his guard. Seemed perfectly Kidd-like so far. He moved carefully as he approached his patient, and the blood-threaded eyes followed him. This was  _ Kidd _ , Law reminded himself,  _ his _ Kidd. But when he reached the man’s side, he found himself at a loss for what to say. Or do with his hands. 

What was the usual procedure for reuniting after one party had been rotting in an enemy dungeon for a year? 

_ Had been left to rot… _

Guilt suddenly coursed through Law. _ What if Kidd thought he'd been abandoned in that dungeon? That the long delay meant his rescue was an afterthought? If it’d been Law in there, Kidd would have thrown himself against the walls of the keep until either it or he broke. And yet cautious, calculating Law had taken his sweet time... _

Kidd’s eyes were hard under their red glaze. The gushy kissy approach seemed out. Law opted instead for desperately normal.

“Uh. So you'll be happy to know that about a third of your crew survived.” Law fussed with his examination kit. “Survived the Kaido thing, I mean. A few more have kicked it since then. Killer’s picked up a bunch more, he's been training them and raiding Kaido’s outer territories for the past—”

“The fuck are you doing,” the creature growled.

Law paused with a tongue depressor halfway to the other's face and frowned. “A checkup.” 

“Why.”

“Because… I'm a fucking doctor? And you're fucking injured?”

“How about you take that thing and go fuck yourself.”

Law tsked and spun the little stick between two fingers. “You've been  _ tortured _ , asshole. Obviously I want to assess the damage.”

Kidd snorted. “I bet.” 

“God. Don't be like that. Sit still and let me take your fucking blood pressure and whatever.”

Kidd didn't give him any more lip, but the accusing silence was definitely worse. He just stayed utterly still and watched Law go about his routine. His pointless routine. Everything was the same and Law knew it—fine but fucked. 

Law avoided those strange eyes but could still feel them burning into him, and his deft motions became clumsy. He fumbled the pen light when it came to checking pupil dilations and it clattered, startlingly loud, to the floor. He left it. He just sat back on his stool and stared at his hands, trying to flex the tension out of them.

“Eustass-ya. I… Whatever you think, I  _ tried _ . I couldn't get to you sooner, I  _ swear _ . I've been trying this whole… this whole time…” Law trailed off as bony fingers were raised to his face. He leaned in without raising his head. “I…”

“I think I met you somewhere?” Kidd muttered.

Law froze. His eyes snapped up.

“Wh… How do you mean?”

“I know you. Right?” Kidd’s eyes skipped searchingly over Law’s face. 

Law's throat was tightening as the meaning of that sank in. “Of course you fucking know me. We… I'm…”

But Kidd's gaze was falling through him and locking onto nothing again, expression flattening into emptiness.

“Kidd… ?”

Kidd wasn't there anymore.

\---

Penguin interrupted Law as the captain was breaking glass vials against the storage room wall. The first mate stopped outside the door and peeked cautiously in. 

“I was gonna ask how he’s doing but uh.”

“He doesn't remember me,” Law replied shortly.

“Like, at all?”

“Nothing. Not just me—everything. He… he's not even  _ him _ . Fuck. It's all  _ fucked _ .” 

Penguin watched a couple more vials rocket at the wall and shatter with sharp puffs. “I guess he was in there a long time. But we've got him now and it'll start coming back.”

“Mhm.” _ Clatter. _

Penguin tried again, “Law, it's not your fault, you know that right? We couldn't have gotten to him any sooner.”

“Hm.”  _ Smash. _

“And, like, it's not the  _ worst _ case scenario, right?”

Law threw a vial at him this time and Penguin snagged it out of the air with ease. Okay, that was a bad thing to have said. He tried once more.

“I just mean like... Trauma is complicated but treatable? Just get him talking a bit at a time. Or—hey! Fuck.” Another vial came flying at him. “Or, yeah, sure. How about you just chuck shit.”

“Good pep talk, Peng.”

“Sure, Cap.”

“Get out, Peng.”

\---

_ Kidd watches the scene repeat before him once again, and tries with everything he has to do something, call out to the figure walking away, lift his hands, stop the sun from sinking away so quickly. _

_ Anything.  _

\---

Law watched the scene repeat itself again that night.

“Eustass-ya, you with me yet?”

“The fuck you want. You here to get a piece?”

_ Shit. _

Then again the next day.

“I know you… right?…”

“Yeah. We know each other pretty well.”

And the day after that. 

And the next.

It was all so wrong. Fucking eerie—like a scratched record instead of a person. 

Over and over, Law explains to Kidd that he’s being taken to his own crew, that he’s safe. Each time, Law seriously almost spooks and runs, but he wills himself to stay and complete his little routine instead. He checks his drip and dressings. Tries to hide glances at the too-sharp sprawl of his meatless shoulders. Avoids the searching fingers that Kidd always lifts to his face. Tells him yes, he does know him. Doesn’t tell tell him how (not again). And then turns his back and walks away.

_ Shit. _

\---

_ The cycle changes, slowly. _

_ Sometimes, now, instead of bringing him to that green oasis, the black nothing in Kidd's head clears to reveal a narrow room with metal walls and clusters of medical machinery. The dark-haired figure that walks toward him in that room, with his prodding tools and sardonic words… is it the same one? _

_ Kidd watches the doctor closely each time, and notices things in this order: _

_ One: He's dangerous. Jeans and hoodie cover most of his narrow build but his stance is that of a fighter. And not a brash, inexperienced one either—he scans the room in a single glance when he enters, and keeps his weight on his back foot even when tending to his patient. His hands are decorated like cherished weapons. _

_ Two: He's fuckin beautiful. His cheekbones are high, his shoulders taper in a neat V to slender hips, and his mouth does this thing where it twitches up at one corner. _

_ Three: He's in love with Kidd. (This one comes with the clarity of a stranger looking in from outside). His hands make precise, measured movements over Kidd's injuries but his eyes are less careful. They're grey and sharp and they rove over Kidd's body furtively like they're afraid of staying too long in one place. When they catch Kidd's gaze, they jump, and when Kidd raises a searching hand to his face they widen in a way that makes Kidd's pulse quicken too. _

_ He's definitely dangerous. _

_ When the doctor finally turns to walk away and the door closes behind him each day, Kidd will forget all of this. The dark will come and wipe it away. _

\---

It was like the black hole of a cell had come with them out of Kaido’s keep, and was steadily consuming his lover right in front of him. Law watched the unbreaking cycle repeat until he’d almost forgotten himself what the blank creature  _ was,  _ and was capable of. But Kidd had this way of catching him right on the cusp of these careless moments. 

This time, when Law ducked his head to avoid the searching hand, Kidd surprised him. He grabbed the unguarded Law and hauled him up close. 

“I DO know you,” he growled, gripping Law's face and turning it back and forth. His lips were pulled back in a rictus snarl over long teeth and receded gums. Sour breath ghosted over Law's face. 

“Oh really.” Law glowered and tried to push away gently, but didn't  _ Room _ away yet.

“We were on a green island. Bubbles...”

Law stopped pulling away. “Yes! Sabaody.”

“And… you were leaving. I couldn't follow. I remember your back, walking away… And then nothing.”

“Nothing else? Not…? Eustass, just think back a little more—”

“What did you do, you bastard,” Kidd shook him. “I see that every fucking day, just that, nothing else. WHY. What did you DO.”

Law clamped down on the protests in his gut and kissed him as hard as he could. Kidd jerked back in surprise but Law followed, trying to get a hold on him. Another moment and he found himself thrown on his back with Kidd's hand wrapped tight around his throat. 

“What the FUCK!” The unfamiliar face loomed over him.

“We were escaping Sabaody with an entire Marine fleet behind us and I fucking kissed you, you asshole!!” Law shouted at him.

“Why??”

“I don’t know! Just to fuck with you? But you chased me down later and kissed me back, and said I’d better get used to it because you don’t let go of anything once you know you want it. I said neither do I. And I  _ don’t. _ I came and got you out of that dungeon, took me a year to do it, but I did, and you… you’re…”

Kidd snarled but panic was creeping into his expression. “Y-you’re a fucking liar. I don't remember any of that.”

“Eustass-ya.”

He flinched and stared, grip tightening. “Who?”

“Eustass-ya, just fucking kiss me,” Law demanded, trying to dislodge his arm and reach up to his face. “It’ll be okay, you’ll remember.”

Kidd didn’t move but something in the air changed. Static coursed over Law’s skin. The metal frame of the bed screeched and bent, equipment rattled and crept toward them, and something deep boomed through the whole submarine… 

“Eus… ! Stop it, just… Ahhk— _ khh!” _

The hand was squeezing and the sub’s hull was shuddering and Law couldn't get a breath out to call a  _ Room _ . Kidd's panicked expression was flattening into nothingness, his mind retreating, even while his grip tightened and his magnetic powers wreaked their havoc.

Law scrabbled to reach the cart next to them. Spots of light gathered and burst in his eyes…

And then Kidd was going limp and falling forward as the rumbling abruptly stopped. Everything went very quiet. 

Law relaxed and gulped air, pulling the needle from Kidd's neck. The body atop him was huge and heavy, even wasted away as it was. Law struggled out from under it and sank to the ground next to the bed with a deep breath.

Penguin and Shachi burst in a moment later.

“Captain! Are you okay!?”

“Yes.”

“What happened? We felt the whole sub shaking…”

Law was silent for a minute, thinking.

“Shachi-ya. Assemble a team to check the sub, every inch, for buckling or damage. Now. Go.” Shachi hurried out. “Penguin-ya…” 

The lanky first mate went to join Law cross-legged on the floor. 

“Peng, we can't keep him here. It's gonna get worse before it gets better. Get on the line to Killer, tell him Eustass is a danger to both ships for the time being. Tell Jean Bart that we’re delaying our plans. Then find a suitable port where we can hide him. Away from everything—towns, Marines, anything metal.”

Penguin nodded but didn't get up just yet. There was something else, he could tell.

Law was silent for a few beats. Then he exhaled it all at once, “He remembered something, he said it was the only thing left of his memories. It was Sabaody.”

Penguin watched him from under the shadow of his hat. “Not the part where you flipped him off and stole his kills, I hope.”

“Hah. No, just the part where I left him standing there like an idiot. That's all, that's what he was holding onto this whole time… fuck…”

Law dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. God, he wanted to cringe at his own stupidity. Getting attached in the first place—there was no fucking room for that in lives like theirs. And all that bullshit, fights over Law’s Shichibukai stint, the Strawhat alliance, Doflamingo. And then the fallout of it all (Kaido) somehow landing on Kidd (literally). And then Law had been too damn cautious, retrieved Kidd too late, way too late. And then brought him  _ here  _ of all places, endangering  _ his _ ship and his devoted, trusting crew. And then… and then… 

Penguin waited quietly, fidgeting with the buttons of his boilersuit, while grief and guilt worked their way silently through Law’s frame. Some stuff just has to run its course, as the first mate knew. He also knew that Law really hated hugs or any sort of coddling contact, so all Penguin could do was sit and wait it out with him.

Finally, the harsh breathing slowed, and Penguin dared to pull the captain’s hand from his face and tug him to his feet. 

Law rose without resistance and stood there awkwardly, still in thought. “I'm keeping him under until we get somewhere secure,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, definitely for the best, Cap. How about you lemme manage him for now, okay? You have a crew to direct, and he's gonna be out for a while anyway. Take some space.”

Law smirked humorlessly, “You're gonna smother him with a pillow, aren't you. You were never a fan, as I recall.”

“Nah, don't worry. I'll draw like, two dicks on his face at most.” Penguin promised solemnly.

That got a terse snort out of Law that was almost a real laugh. He let Penguin's dark levity harden him, and went to attend to the matters at hand.

\---

_ Kidd waited another million passes of that sun overhead, a million momentary flickers of light over that fucking green prison and that departing figure. Their shadows stretched around from west to east, west to east, spinning on, spinning on, while they each remained trapped in their aborted gestures. _

_ But the cycle wasn't counting down to darkness anymore. There was more to the memory now instead of less—details were sharpening, the moment lengthening. Something was glinting in the sun… gold earrings? Kidd became aware of his own hand, raised to his lips where the ghost of a fierce kiss lingered. And his heart, beating like a caged animal in his chest. It fucking ached. _

_ And in that second before the figure had fully turned to walk away, there was almost… there. A sliver of face he fucking knew. A name he knew. _

\---

“Law.”

Law’s pen stopped in its scrawl and hovered over the page.

“Shit… Law.  _ Law.” _ Kidd fumbled upright atop the pallet in the dimly-lit canvas tent.

“Eustass-ya…” Law put his book aside and padded over barefoot to sit at his side. “Just rest for now.”

Kidd caught the hand pushing at his shoulder and stared. Law steeled himself for another repeat. Fingers made their searching stretch toward his face, traced slowly from his jaw to his earrings.

“Do you know who I am yet?” he prompted.

“Fuck. Can't think. My head's foggy and my fucking eyes burn…”

“That's the sedative wearing off. Do you recall being awake before this? On the ship? What's the last thing you remember?”

Kidd snorted and shrugged, rubbing his eyes. “I remember we've had this fucking conversation before.”

“That's good. Okay. What else?”

Red eyes went back to Law's earrings. “Green everywhere. Bubbles.”

Law nodded and dropped his gaze. Time. It'd take time… 

“Bubbles and bullets and… you. Kissing you in the middle of everything. I remember you walking away from me, and not being able to follow. I remember your name too: _ Law.” _ Kidd’s hand dropped from the earrings to the tattoos decorating Law's tan skin.

“Yeah. Um. ‘Trafalgar.’ That's what you called me, or call me. Usually.” 

“Trafalgar,” Kidd tried that out.

“Yeah. I'm. I'm your…”

“You're  _ mine.  _ Right?”

“...Yeah.” Hesitantly, Law extended a hand to smooth over Kidd's chest, sweat-slick and pale. His shoulders were no longer powerful, but still broad and tensed like a spring. Kidd sat stock still and watched him, until Law started to reach around the back of his neck to pull him closer. 

He caught Law’s hand and made a warning sound. “Hands where I can see em.”

Law scoffed, stung. “But you know me. You trust me.”

“Why.”

“Well I’ve been fucking taking care of you this entire time,” Law argued irritably. “I rescued you, for fuck sake.”

“And I bet you think I owe you, huh?” Kidd rejected this, but still shuffled closer to keep up his cautious study of Law’s face and tattoos. “I can tell, I can just fuckin tell from the way you look at me. You want a piece outta me.”

“I want the whole fucking thing,” Law retorted quietly.

That seemed to amuse the feral man. He leaned back and gestured at his heavily scarred self. “Well looks like some stuff went missing along the line, so you’re shit outta luck. Unless you know where the rest of it is, huh? I remember there being more of me when we met.”

“I don’t know what happened to your arm. You disappeared for months and then refused to tell me anything.”

“That so? I thought I trusted you so much.”

“...I don’t know what to tell you.” Law made that impatient sound again and moved back to the edge of the bed, putting some distance between them. He picked absently at the flaking black on his own nails, not looking at Kidd. He’d gotten into the habit of keeping them meticulously painted, in Kidd’s absence, but he’d been distracted recently and they were all shitty right now. 

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced over to see Kidd edging close and examining him again. 

“Keep your hands to yourself, if it's like that,” Law grumbled, shrugging off the hand thumbing over his earrings again.

Kidd ignored this. “You took everything metal out of the area, I can tell, but you’re still fucking wearing these. You know I could use them to kill you, easy.”

“That so.”

“You know ‘that’s so.’ And a guy who remembers to take the metal eyelets out of the tent and use wooden nibs on his pen… you don’t make mistakes. So what’s with the earrings?”

“Maybe I just trust you, huh?”

Kidd scoffed. “You don’t trust me any more than I trust you. There’s a needle on the desk and one by the bed, and an entire crew within shouting distance. I can hear their cute little fluttering heartbeats.”

“Perceptive as ever.” Law murmured. He stayed sitting there, glancing around and thinking guiltily of how to put Kidd back under again, until lips on his ear startled him out of his resentful stewing. “Eustass-ya??”

“You wanted me to kiss you, didn’t you?” Kidd questioned, close to Law’s space and watching his reactions. “You said so before.”

“Just leave me alone if you mistrust me so much,” Law complained, unsettled and uncertain. He went to get up.

Kidd pulled him back down sharply with a growl. “I don’t fuckin trust you because you got everything and I got nothing. You got more of  _ me _ than  _ I _ do—at least you remember shit. I don’t know where I am, who I am, who YOU are… I just know you got me drugged and contained and controlled, and that I somehow  _ wanna _ give you even more of me than that…” He squeezed Law’s upper arm. “And that’s not fucking fair. Tell me what’s up with the earrings.”

Law swallowed down the next wave of guilt. He stayed sitting and shrugged. “You’ve been kinda fixating on them since I brought you in… I didn’t want you to wake up and not recognize me.”

“Even if it got you killed?”

“I guess.”

Law felt Kidd grin against his ear. “Heh. Guess I do got something of yours, huh?”

“Yeah…” Law went to get up again. There was too much shit going on in his head right now to even tell what he was feeling… he needed to go think.

A hand around the back of his neck prevented him. Cool lips and tongue moved down to taste his jaw.

“Lemme up,” Law insisted. 

“I want another piece of you.”

“Idiot,” Law spat, still pushing at his hand. “You’re injured. Not whole.”

“Well, it’s not my fucking dick that’s missing is it.”

“No, it’s the rest of you.”

Kidd shoved him suddenly. Law scrambled back and Kidd followed, grabbing him and snarling,  _ “Look _ at you, all fucking sad and shit. You gonna go hide somewhere and mourn me while I'm right fucking here? FUCK you, I’m trying. I got this one thing to go on, this  _ one _ thing I know, and if I don’t grab onto it and just… feel it, I’m gonna fucking lose that too.”

“Eustass—”

“I want you.”

The air crackled. Law’s piercings clattered. If there'd been a ship around them it might’ve been collapsing and falling into ruin. But as it was, there were only a few nonmetal supplies and Law to damage. 

He pushed all his panicked thoughts deep down with a couple hard swallows, and put his arms around the Kiddlike creature’s neck.

“Have me then.”

Law was flipped onto his back again, and the fingers pressed into his mouth this time. He let them. 

\---

Kidd remembered his name, and that was more than Law could’ve even hoped for a week ago. It was… something. It meant things were getting better, right? This was all familiar territory, at least. The way Kidd manhandled him into place, grabbed everything he could with digging fingers and hungry mouthfuls. It was so like him. 

Law shoved and grabbed right back, fisting his hands in the red hair while blunt fingers opened him up. He dragged his nails over Kidd's back and shoulders and left deep welts. Kidd ususally loved that… although this time he snatched the clawing hands away from him and squeezed them down hard. But that was familiar too.

And he seemed to remember Law's sensitive spots, at least the physical ones. He knew where to crook his fingers to make him curse and arch his back, and knew that licking around the shell of his ear would make him shiver. But he didn't seem to remember Law's rules—the specific ways Law had shown him through the fraught terrain of his body.

“You  _ know _ I hate doing it like this,” Law growled when Kidd tied his hands behind his back with bandages, tightening the knots with his teeth. He didn't stop him or twist out of the ties though. 

“Like what.” Kidd was undeterred.

“Rope and shit. It’s… just…”

“You telling me I never held you down and fucked you?”

“You have,” Law huffed a terse laugh. “With your  _ hands,  _ though…”

“Well I'm short a hand so you're gonna have to deal.”

Kidd had turned Law on his side and wrapped himself around the curve of his back. He grasped with just the right pressure around Law’s dick, and thumbed over the weeping slit. His own swollen cock slid back and forth over Law’s hole, needy but slow. 

Law’s heart was hammering against his ribs and his throat felt stuck, like he couldn’t get enough air. In a moment he knew Kidd would wrap an arm tight around his waist, hold him still and push inside him. Like he’d done many times before… though never with Law restrained like this. Law really did hate being tied up—it made him feel claustrophobic and panicked. But like hell was he going to stop things. He fucking needed this too. And part of him felt like he owed it to Kidd, to take whatever he wanted to do to him.

“Why do you hate being tied? Did I do something bad to you?” Kidd mouthed over his ear again and another shiver spiked through him.

“Not you. You'd never.”

“Someone else? I’ll fucking kill them.”

“Shut  _ up _ . Weren't you gonna hold me down and fuck me? Or are you too damaged after all.”

He was so fucking easy to provoke—that hadn't changed. 

“Damaged? Fucker.” Kidd bit the cartilage of his ear, hard, and Law made a startled sound. “I’ll fuck you til you can't walk. You'll be the one in the hospital bed.”

“Mmn, do it,” he groaned. “Fucking do it.”

Kidd locked his arm around Law’s hips, angling them back against him. His cock pushed and slid until it found that vulnerable point and started to grind in.

“Kidd, fuck, Kidd… AHH!”

It was almost too much, even with the prep—fucking intense and fucking perfect. Kidd was clasping tight around his hip to keep him still. His cock dragged against and forced open the sensitive flesh, slowly, until he was pressed flat up against him.

Law breathed hard through his teeth and forced himself to relax. He could almost come just like that—arms wrenched back, body arched, being split open. 

He heard Kidd breathing raggedly in his ear. “Fuck,” he groaned. “You feel so good.”

“Mn.”

“God I wanna… make you feel good, but fucking kill you too. This how it always is?”

“More or less.”

“Huh. I’m guessing you’re into a little damage, then.”

“...under certain circumstances.” Law evaded, thinking of the needle again, until jarring motions shook it out of his head. “Ngh!  _ Ah! _ ”

Kidd was already lost in it, focused on angling them together harder and deeper. He found his rhythm and leaned into it with desperate energy.

Law strained against the bandages biting his wrists and gasped through each thrust. The sick fear in his chest hadn't abated, even aroused as he was. He berated himself internally for his weakness. This was  _ his _ Kidd, after all—Kidd’s possessive hand pressing his leg forward, Kidd’s hot breath on the nape of his neck. But it was all wrong too. The hand was cold and hard on his skin. All the playfulness Law knew, all his cocky finesse, had abraded away into feral greed. He was pounding into Law like he really wanted to hurt him.

It was like a stranger was using him… The panic in Law’s chest spiked and he suddenly wanted to turn around and see Kidd’s face.

“Kidd—ahh—I need…” his voice caught.

“Need what,” Kidd grit out. He was close—his hand was gripping bruises into the soft flesh under Law's knee, and he was holding and releasing deep breaths.

“Fuck. I don't know…  _ y-you.” _

“I'm right fucking here.”

“Wait.” Law started struggling away. “Ah! Shit. Wait…”

Kidd growled and pulled out so Law could turn onto his back. 

Law looked up at him and found nothing to hold onto. It was suddenly clear to him that even if Kidd remembered his name, he was still missing all of the stuff that made that mean anything. Their history.  _ Him _ … All the reasons that he shouldn't just wrap his hand around Law's throat and squeeze til the threat was gone.

Kidd looked down at the panic and need warring on Law’s face.

“Close your eyes,” he told him.

“Kidd…”

“Law, close your eyes. I'm right here.”

Law pressed his eyelids together and hated himself when he felt tears spill over and trail down into his hair. God, he was being stupid. He wasn't the one who'd been fucking captured, tortured, all but erased.

He jolted when rough lips met his. The kiss was perfect and slow, like he remembered. He let out an injured cry when Kidd plunged back into him and resumed his determined pace, but Kidd swallowed it down with another kiss and leaned into him harder.


End file.
